Skeptics 1999 Maastricht

European Skeptics '99 Maastricht

The European Skeptical Congress of 1999 wil be held in The Netherlands. The place will
be Maastricht, and the time will September 17-19. The location will be Maastricht
University.

Maastricht is in the southernmost tip of the Netherlands. It lies very close to Germany
and Belgium, and boasts of a rich artistic, historic and culinary culture, and is worth a
visit.

The language of the congress will be English.

The theme is:

The challenge of the 21st century

This theme has many subthemes. We welcome both case studies and broad analyses. We hope
that contributors will in all cases provide both empirical underpinnings of their
messages, and visions of how to apply their findings in the future.

The 21st century will bring new challenges for everybody, hence for skeptics too. On
the brink of this new century it seems a good idea to try to look into the future and
prepare for it.

Environment

Concern for environmental issues (greenhouse effect, pollution of various kinds,
radioactivity, electrosmog) will continue to grow. This field is rife with uncertainties
and conflicts. Economic activities, which yield concrete benefits in the near future,
clash with the much more uncertain long run environmental risks they entail. Health issues
further compound the problem. In the face of so many unknowns a major risk is that
irrational solutions are sought, and that what passes for scientific consensus actually is
politically engineered mass hysteria.

Physical health

In the field of health many new developments will occur. One is that scientific
improvements and a rising age of the population will make the costs of health care go up.
This will encourage people to look for low cost alternative solutions for health problems,
and also to privately shop around for things that the public health care cannot provide.
This will result in much irrationality.

Mental health

Another development that the 21st century will bring is a better understanding of
psychosomatic diseases and the placebo effect. Both belong to the mysterious realm of
mind-body interaction. The past two centuries or so have seen the rise of mesmerism and
the discovery of the placebo effect and an endless succession of fad diseases. It is to be
expected that scientific research will proceed to unravel these mind-body relations. What
is known in this respect? Is science up to this challenge at all?

Secularisation

The secularisation of European society will increase. In other words, the traditional
forms of official religion will continue to decline gradually. The void they leave is
filled with a great number of new religions, each with their own mixture of humanitarian
values, revelations of uncertain origin and testable (and probably false) claims. The
traditional religions seem to fall back on ever more uncompromising positions. The
skeptical movement usually steers clear of religious issues and takes a definitely
agnostic point of view. But skeptics are often seen as unromantic cold cynics, and their
passion for truth is not understood, or they are seen as wanton spoilers of pleasant
illusions. At best they are seen as somewhat otherworldly people. Should `skeptics' try to
appeal more to widely understood humanitarian values and offer a coherent world view
instead of merely sticking to `It ain't necessarily so'?

Entertainment and media

Entertainment will continue to increase. There's a growing tendency in all media
(books, newspapers, movies, radio, tv, internet) to confuse amusement and information.
Possibly this is related to the enormous efforts that are being spent on trying to attract
the attention of the public. It is not something of recent times either, because (at least
in The Netherlands) `lying' and `printing' are proverbially identified. Anyway, the trend
of mixing entertainment with information is likely to increase. The general public is less
sophisticated than the media makers and often thinks that what's on tv is true when it
isn't. How serious is this problem? What can be done about it? What are the possibilities
for promoting a clear distinction between amusement and information?

Academia

Nonsense is spreading in academia. Certain departments have lax standards, specifically
in management `science' and other soft fields. The need to attract attention and get
anything published, no matter what the quality, is cited as explanation for this. In the
`hard' sciences political pressure to produce quick results for little money leads to
questionable quality. Companies hire gurus to provide for their personnel an uncertain
mixture of education, motivation, entertainment and crypto-religion, and seem to be unable
to judge the merits of what they get. Are universities up to the task of guarding the
integrity of science?

Old issues

The old superstitions are certainly not going to vanish, but they are changing.
Astrology is a case in point: the astrologers that call themselves `serious' retreat to
unfalsifiable positions, and lose interest in tests. The public never bothers to question
glossy astrology columns either: it's just as amusing as sitting in a merry-go-round on a
wooden horse and going nowhere, but all the while enjoying new sensations and -
temporarily - a new look on the world. What is the skeptic comment on that? Parapsychology
has been around for a century. Has it produced anything worthwhile. One might think of
parts of parapsychology that have been incorporated into ordinary psychology or the
setting of standards for the design of experiments.

Summary

Any speaker who wishes to comment on the skeptical challenges of the 21st century in
the fields of environment, physical and mental health, secularisation and the media is
welcome. Any progress report on old issues is welcome. Any suggestions how to meet these
challenges, (for instance by school education) is welcome.

The Dutch organization Skepsis customarily publishes proceedings of
its conferences in book form. Also for this conference such a publication is planned.
Contributors will be asked to submit a full length paper before the beginning of the
conference. The standard time for presenting the essentials of these papers will be 20
minutes. Proposals are expected before February 1, 1999.